Viewpoints: Rice's testimony critiqued

Published 5:30 am, Friday, April 9, 2004

Enough blame for all

Regarding our problem in Iraq, it seems to me that there is blame enough to go around. We could start with President
Bill Clinton
's reduction in our armed forces. We need more troops and we do not have them.

If the Shiites were furious with us after the Persian Gulf War because we did not stay and finish the job, how was anyone to know they would be furious with us this time for staying and finishing the job?

The majority of Iraqis are glad to have us, but, as with the conservatives in this country, they are not as loud or as well-equipped as the activists.

No weapons of mass destruction? Saddam [Hussein] had used some of them on his own people. He was dickering for uranium. Taking him out was a good plan — even without finding weapons, at least not yet.

Bush could only go by what he was told. Our intelligence was just faulty, and not without some reason.

Declassify 9/11 memo

If President George W. Bush was "tired of swatting flies," as [the president's national security adviser]
Condoleezza Rice
said, then perhaps he should have left his Crawford ranch in August 2001 and gone back to Washington.

The presidential daily brief of August 6, [2001] should be immediately declassified since it speaks directly about a threat by Osama bin Laden.

If the FBI, the CIA and the president had been truly communicating on a daily basis after this ominous briefing, who knows if 9/11 could have been averted.

Nation served with honor

The April 8 Outlook article, "A testimony to 'blackness' in high places," was reprehensible. Why is Condoleezza Rice continually assailed and debased? It think it's disgusting that a person such as Rice, who has excelled academically and politically, and just happens to be a person of color who ascribes to a philosophy or belief system other than what is "expected" of that person because of her race or gender, is continually disrespected. She has served this nation and its citizens with dignity and honor.

Her version of testimony

Debra Dickerson
's Outlook article asserted that the "weight of the evidence, after all, is likely to point toward inattention." I wonder, did Condoleezza Rice tell Dickerson something she has kept from the rest of us? Or has Dickerson just shown us her closed mind? She wouldn't make a very good juror [if she's not] willing to hear testimony before drawing a conclusion.

Or is Dickerson really afraid that the evidence will contradict her desired conclusions, apparently based on skin color? Does she want to sway others to hear Rice's testimony her way, rather than with a truly open mind that she apparently lacks?

I thought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. asked us to judge people on what they do — not on the color of their skin. Or has Dickerson thrown King's words out because they no longer advance her personal agenda?

William Marble, Houston

The awesome difference

I hope everyone gets to see even a few snippets of Condoleezza Rice's testimony. You can clearly see the difference between a politician and an intelligent woman. She is awesome.